Suds With Heart: The Impact of Car Wash Fundraising

When I think of washing cars to raise money, I picture high school sports teams and youth groups with soapy buckets in parking lots. It’s a classic part of fundraising, right up there with lemonade stands and Girl Scout cookies.

Car wash businesses have improved on this idea and are doing fundraisers to benefit their communities. We’ve profiled some charity car washes before, right here on Car Wash Fanatic!

Right now, car washes are stepping up to help their neighbors affected by recent hurricanes. There’s some irony in using water to help offset the effects of water damage, but it’s a great approach. One shining example of car washing for hurricane relief comes from Mike’s Car Wash, a Midwest chain. By allocating $1 of every $15 wash to a non-profit, Mike’s donated over $10,000 to hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Mike’s actually does many fundraisers, and their website gives information on how organizations can work with them to raise money. Mister Car Wash has a similar program for non-profit organizations.

It seems to me that fundraising at a professional car wash is a great arrangement! Consumers get a safe car wash (no dish soap suds), money goes to charity, and businesses get new customers. Plus, holding a fundraiser at a car wash ensures soapy water goes into an appropriate collection system to get filtered and reused. When washing a car in a parking lot, all those suds go right into the storm drain, which is not good for our environment.

If you’re a car wash owner interested in learning how to run a car wash fundraiser, you know you’ve already got the tools to carry out the event. Guidestar.org has some good resources on how to legally raise funds. If it seems daunting, partnering with a registered 501(c)(3) for the event may be a good idea. Then, it’s time to plan out how much of each wash will go to the non-profit, and get the word spreading.

Car Wash Fanatic looks forward to hearing more about how the car wash industry is giving back to communities! Have you ever run a car wash fundraiser at your business? If you have any tips, let us know in the comments!

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[…] school is in session there are a lot of sports fundraisers going on. We talked about this in more detail last week, but professional car washes are a good place to hold your fundraiser. We’ve seen a bunch of car […]